North Wales council votes to speed up approvals for fire station project

NORTH WALES >> The path toward a renovated fire station for the North Penn Fire Company cleared a large hurdle Tuesday night.

Borough council approved a motion meant to streamline the approval process for the company, and save it both time and money as the renovation project turns from plans into reality.

“We just get to proceed, and keep moving ahead without having to stop and get approvals. That’s what this whole resolution is for,” said Firefighter Dave Quinn.

The fire company has been discussing and developing plans for a roughly $1.5 million renovation project to its station and neighboring properties on the 100 block of South Main Street since January. The expansion was prompted by the company’s new purchase of a roughly $1.2 million ladder truck that would not fit in the main truck bay of the station, which would be expanded as the first phase of the renovation.

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“Our new truck is ordered, and scheduled for delivery sometime around the end of the year. That’s what the rush is, to get this building finished,” Quinn said.

The first phase of the project is tentatively scheduled to start in mid-August and be finished by late November, and would include expanding the main engine bay, located farthest left when facing the front of the station, along with relocating bathrooms, replacing the concrete aprons on the driveway leading to the station, and raising the height of the main door for the new fire truck to fit.

Phase two would expand the lobby and vestibule area and build an elevator tower to improve access to the second floor. The third phase would convert a neighboring building into administrative space, while adding sprinklers, and the fourth phase would add sprinklers to the second and third floor of the neighboring building and the main building.

“Everything will be completed by October 2018, as long as the funding comes through the way it’s expected,” Quinn said.

On Tuesday night, roughly two dozen firefighters turned out to ask borough council to pass a motion waiving the formal land development process for the project, a move staff said would speed up the fire company’s approvals considerably.

“They’ve agreed to go through plan review, building inspections, they will be meeting ADA requirements. There’s nothing in the current construction code that we’re waiving or foregoing, it’s just basically this process,” said Borough Manager Christine Hart.

Hart and Solicitor Greg Gifford said the borough and its various consultants would still perform the normal reviews on the fire station project, but they recommended waiving the formal process because the building footprints would not change, and the company provides a public service the borough would otherwise have to provide.

“I wanted to make sure it wasn’t constantly ‘Stop the project, we’ve got to wait two weeks for a borough council meeting.’ It would be very onerous and expensive to be doing that all the time,” Gifford said.

Councilman Sal Amato said he supported the company and its project, but he would like a more specific list of steps in the process that would be waived by the blanket approval.

“I’d like to see more of a statement saying ‘This is why we need to do this.’ I see no problem in doing this, I really don’t, but I want to make sure we have a good reason for doing this — and that reason is said,” Amato said.

Hart and Gifford said similar waivers typically do not include that level of detail, but the approval granted by council Tuesday would only count for the station plans currently on file, and any future changes to the plans would have to be resubmitted and vetted again.

“For me, it just made it clearer and easier to keep it somewhat general,” Gifford said.

Council ultimately voted unanimously to approve the waiver of the land development process, and several council members thanked the volunteer firefighters for protecting the town.

Quinn said afterward the fire company plans to open the bids received for constructing the renovation project at the end of this week, will review the bids with an architect next week, and hopes to award the first phase of construction in early August. More details on the final plans and the capital campaign to cover the costs will be publicized by the fire company as the project proceeds, Quinn said.